Writing for Woman's World Magazine and others. Half critique. Half blog. Half not so hot with math.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Key
to the crime

By
Tracie Rae Griffith

Appearing in January 14, 2013 issue

For sale date: January 4th

Tag
Line:Detective Kay began to wonder if
the thief had managed to make a clean getaway …

The police:Detective Kristine Kay.

Overview:Antique 24-carat gold earrings are missing from a guest’s
room.

Crime Scene:Hotel room.

The
suspects: Front desk
clerk, the housekeeperand the
handyman.

Clues:Room 181 still had the maid service card dangling from the knob when the
detective arrived. There was an unmade
bed, waste basket full of paper, and wet towels in the bathroom to indicate the
maid had not been in there yet. The
victim claimed she had worn her earrings the night before to an event and had left
them on the bureau before she retired and they were still there in the morning.
The victim rose at 8:00 AM, made tea in her room and turned on the weather
channel.She tried to do some work at
the desk but the lamp did not work. The
victim took a shower, hung the maid sign on the door, and went downstairs for
breakfast.She was gone for about an
hour.When she returned to her room, the
earrings were gone. The handyman stated
he had been tied up on another floor and hadn’t had a chance to fix the lamp
yet.The housekeeper maintained that she
hadn’t been in room 181 to clean yet as she arrived late for work and was
behind in her duties .

Detective
Kay noted that the two people who had door keys alleged to have not entered the
room to do their job. While the
detective mulled over the case, she turned on the TV in the room via the remote
and watched a hockey game in progress.This act gave her the information she needed to solve this crime.

Red
Herrings:The desk clerk told the detective there were
no signs of a break-in even though he was not asked.The words ‘clean getaway’ in the title send
the message that it was the maid. Upon hearing there had been a theft, the desk
clerk paled and called the police.Yet
later he stated that the victim must be mistaken and that the hotel has a
flawless reputation.The desk clerk
surely has access to the master key that opens every room on the property.

Solution:The handyman did it.He had gone to the room to fix the lamp, had turned on the sports
channel to check the score for his favorite team, saw the earrings, stole them,
then left without fixing the lamp so he could say he had never been in the
room.

My two cents:I was not able to figure out how a
hockey game on the TV fit it.My weather
channel has sports and news clips in between the weather bits, so I didn’t
think anyone had changed the channel.Perhaps it should have read the 24-hour all
weather channel.And the hockey game
didn’t lead me to the handyman. That
part was a bit stereotyped.The maid
couldn’t be a big hockey fan?My
daughter is.

All in all
this was a good story.Worthy of
WW.It read well, was consistent and was
not easy to solve.

NOTE:The author of this story advised me that WW
changed a lot of her details, including the title and the clue that solved the
crime.This happens all the time with
WW.“My Two Cents” critiques the story
as WW presented it.

4 comments:

The author asked me to add her comments here. She had a hard time posting here.

"Originally:

A man had cuff links stolen. He was a sports writer and had worn the cuff links to a meeting the night before. He wasn't wearing the cuff links that morning because he was going casual in a polo shirt.

He had watched the all sports channel for awhile, and then written his sports column. He went down to eat lunch and left the "maid requested" sign on the door.

There was NO broken lamp or handyman. The maid had been the culprit. She had turned off the sports channel and turned on her favorite soap opera, which was the music Detective Kay listened to.

So, they changed my story quite a bit, including the characters names and of course the title, also.

I like Tracie's version better. The TV being tuned to a soap opera station by the maid, while also a bit stereotyped, is more believable for a male sports writer scenario than the woman/weather channel/hockey game thing. Maybe WW thought there weren't enough red herrings in the story.

Mom on my porch, doing the same jigsaw puzzle she does every day.

Kayla, my granddaughter. :)

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Want help with your story?

My day job puts me in contact with real cops, detectives, FBI agents and DEA guys. I have worked thousands of cases from the homeless guy on the Metrorail who got arrested for jumping the turnstile -- that’s right, arrested for not having a quarter -- to the Tamiami Strangler, a serial killer who strangled hookers along the famous trail in Miami. I produce court transcripts for a living.

Who better to look at your mystery stories to see if the police procedures are true, the clues are solid and the whole thing works? I will not hesitate to point out the good, the bad and the ugly in your story. Both of my WW mysteries made it to Johnene. From there? Cross your fingers.

The line-by-line edit, which also includes grammar, spelling and proofing, will offer suggestions on how to improve problem spots. The cost is $29 payable by PayPal. 72-hour turn around time.

I’ll also take a second look once you’ve revamped your story, but this time I’ll only look for glaring errors assuming all the details you chose to put in you want to stay in.

Send your story as a Word e-mail attachment to ladyrprter at aol dot com, and the fee to PayPal using ladyrprter at aol dot com for the payee

Your tag line is the hook that gets someone interested in reading your work. It's one of the most important lines of your story. Take time to make it sparkle.

Criminals don't always think the crime through--especially if the crime is one of passion or revenge--but don't have them make stupid or stilly mistakes just to get your story written. Make the mistakes something that you just normally don't think about. Like the pruning skin in this story.

You don't always have to have crime scene details to make a mystery story work. Cozy mysteries sell well if you make the characters interesting.

Once again WW chose a story with a female cop and little old ladies. Just remember to use the proper words for the crimes and before you say things like, he jimmied the lock, understand just what that is.

You've only got 700 words. Make them count. Don't waste words on things that don't matter. And NEVER give a clue and then later in the solution change it to the opposite. That's not fair. Just how is the reader supposed to figure it out then?

There are many ways to lay out the solve-it-yourself story. You don't always have to have the reader guess who the perp is. This week's story was presented with a fresh angle. We knew who did it. The question was did she cover her tracks well enough to fool the police?

As writers we often ask the reader to suspend disbelief a bit, but don't overdo it. Keep it as real as you can or you'll lose the reader.

If you have four suspects, have four good motives. Otherwise what's the point in having four suspects? It is almost a sin to have four suspects and not have even one decent red herring in the bunch. That's just a waste of words.

When the reader expects one situation, and gets another, that's really a form of a red herring. I expected a tired old theory and was given the surprise of a fresh twist. As the reader I was tricked...and that's a good thing.

When you reuse characters be sure to make them interesting and likable. Being cranky is not the same as being interesting. Be careful to not let one of them become mean. It's hard to like someone who calls people names and teases them about their not so glorious past.

Don't introduce a main character too late in the story. The reader feels cheated.

You don't always have to have police involved for a mystery to work. Be realistic if you are going to use animals in your story. Lassie wasn't real.

Write in more than one good motive. Two or three people could have done it, but only one has the means and opportunity to go with that motive.

I realize you only have 700 words to get in your story, but use every one of those words wisely. Don't repeat to fill the space. If your story is really done in 350 words, your story is too simple.

Try not to use the same old tired solutions. We're writers. Come up with something new and interesting. Treat the readers to a challenge. If I see one more muddy footprint on a white carpet...I'm going to hurt somebody.

Readers like to follow the same characters. Once you sell a mystery to WW, try building up a following by using the same police characters in future stories. Do us all a favor though... make them likable.

I know I'm repeating myself (talk about deja vu) but please try your very best to come up with a fresh twist or interesting solution that hasn't been done before. We want WW readers to LOVE this mystery page...not become bored with it.

Don't use too many names in your story. It just confuses the reader. The story this week handled this extremely well. You knew who you were reading about from the character's description. It all flowed well and never pulled the reader out of the story.

A short story is really just a very short novel. The same rules apply. Give us characters we will love and care about. Don't have them doing silly things.

Once again we have someone not acting right. Check your facts. Check your facts. Check your facts. Did I mention you should ALWAYS check your facts? Getting the details right should just be a given.

Make sure the solution makes sense. Common sense. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you do? Think? How would you act? Don't throw in a rotten fish just for smell.

Know the proper use of words. Men don't leer at each other -- generally. lol. Don't make up a silly details to fit your story line. Make sure everything works and people act in character.

UPDATE: Woman's World has changed their rights clause.

Q: It used to be WW had FNSR, first rights with a 6-month clause. Has that changed?

A: Yes. It used to be first serial rights which meant the magazine had the right to be the first place to publish the article/story/ poem in North America (USA and Canada) and after the piece ran, you were free to resell it to another medium or to package a collection of your work into a book.

However in 2014 Bauer Publishing has changed to this:

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About Me

Following sixteen years as a travel agent (more travel than money) Jody Lebel switched gears, returned to school and became a court reporter (more money than travel). She swapped jetting off to fun and exotic locations for reporting the cases of murderers, rapists, and thieves who are, by the way, almost never in a good mood. Being assigned to the chief judge in Broward County exposed her to a wide spectrum of cases; from funny to tragic to bizarre to downright creepy. She has reported everything from a homeless guy who had jumped the turnstile on the Metrorail and was now in jail for not having a quarter, to the Tamiami Strangler, a serial killer who murdered six women. ******
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In 1981, Heinrich Bauer Verlag of Hamburg, West Germany, one of Europe's largest magazine publishers, entered America's highly competitive women's service magazine field when it launched the weekly Woman's World. The magazine quickly set itself apart from the rest of the pack. Other women's magazines of the day were mostly thick slick tomes bursting with ads, and featuring articles geared to upwardly mobile readers. Woman's World, on the other hand, offered a high-quality tabloid-style format light on ads that was aimed at middle-class moms who wanted practical advice on food, fashion, parenting, and beauty and health tips. The public soon took notice. Woman's World quickly became the most popular weekly women's magazine in the country.

Today, Bauer Publishing USA, headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, is the number one seller of magazines on newsstands in the United States, generating an annual $320 million dollars in single copy revenue. It publishes two of the top five selling titles on the newsstand-Woman's World and In Touch Weekly. For several years running, Woman's World, a fixture at supermarket checkout stands everywhere, was the most popular newsstand magazine of any kind. As it celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006, Woman's World remains the #1 selling women's publication on newsstands, selling more than 77 million copies in 2004. First for Women, another Bauer publication was second in sales with 25 million. Far back in the pack in third place was Woman's Day, with sales of 16 million newsstand copies.

Woman's World celebrated its 25th year on the newstands in 2006. This weekly publication is the number one newsstand seller with a yearly circulation of well over 84 million. Don't underestimate this little magazine. Woman's World is very popular with middle class women for many reasons. The price is nice, at $1.79 and it has very few ads and none of those annoying subscription cards inside. Every single page is jam packed with information and the romantic fiction and a solve-it-yourself mystery are a nice bonus. The features makes you feel good too.

Woman's World Fiction Guidelines

WOMAN'S WORLD FICTION GUIDELINES Mini mystery guidelines: We purchase short "solve-it-yourself" mysteries of 700 words--a count that includes the narrative and the solution. Stories should be cleverly plotted, entertaining cliffhangers that end with a challenge to the reader to figure out “whodunit” or “howdunit.” The solution to the mystery is provided in a separate box.Robbery, burglary, fraud and murder are acceptable subjects, but spare the readers any gory details or excessive violence, please! We are also not interested in ghost stories, science fiction or fantasy.We pay $500 per mystery and retain all rights after publication.IMPORTANT NOTES:Manuscripts should be double-spaced in legible size type.Where to send manuscripts:

If you have not previously been published by Woman's World magazine: Fiction@WomansWorldMag.com to Patricia Gaddis' attention If you have had a romance or mini-mystery published by Woman's World:FictionPro@WomansWorldMag.com to Patricia Gaddis' attention

Get to know us: Please familiarize yourself thoroughly with our romances and mini mysteries before submitting your work.Be patient: Because we receive a tremendous volume of manuscripts, our turnaround time may range from one to three months. If you still have not heard from us after four months, feel free to submit your manuscript t another publisher. Please do not call or write us to inquire about a manuscript's status.

My track record --

I took Kate Willoughby's workshop on how to write for Woman's World magazine. I highly recommend it. Go to her blogspot site at womansworldstyle.blogspot.com for more info.

Then I sat down and wrote my first romance story for WW. That was in July 2012. It sold in November 2012 and appeared in the December 31st issue.